We got up early as in about 6, got our act together had breakfast and got the boat in order. We had gotten permission to leave at 8 am, and we were out on time. The guard came by as planned, got the last of our paperwork and bracelet that opens the gates and bathrooms and since there was no wind we were easily able to get out of the slip. The dredge was still where it had been when we came in (apparently it is broken and waiting on repair, as opposed to what they told us in the office the day before). The channel is narrow and the water was flat calm, until we got to the mouth of the harbor. The mouth of this harbor points south, which is good in that it blocks the waves that are coming from the pacific from going straight into the marinas. But it is bad when you get to the end of the breakwater and you find yourself at 90 degrees to the waves! Oh, and with the dredging you have to continue this direction (due south, with the waves from the west) for several hundred feet, as the sand from the dredging is piled under the surface to the west. Water depth I saw as we rolled with the waves was as high as 10 feet and as low as 4.5 feet. (The problem there is that we draw 5 feet, so that suggests we found the bottom for at least a little bit!). As we were coming out, I had Renee’ sit near the bow and watch for other boats or issues, she kept suggesting we turn into the waves (I wanted to but the bottom was an issue) eventually we got through the surf and headed west.
We had to get out far enough to get around the islands near Mazatlan (probably less than a mile out but still it was pretty ruff as the waves were coming from the North West and we were at a wrong angle and getting rolled pretty good all the way out. Eventually we turned and got pointed in about the right direction, and I put the auto pilot in Auto to keep us going that direction and headed below to set up the chart plotter and course.
As you might recall, the backlight on the chart plotter on deck is out, so we can’t see the screen in the daytime. So, I got the course figured out and determined how many degrees I had to turn to get us on track and went back on deck and started lining us up. Over the next half hour or so, I made several trips below to get it set up and then engaged the chart plotter to the auto pilot so it would keep us on course. The Auto pilot will only keep the boat pointed in one direction by itself, the chart plotter working with the autopilot will keep the boat going to the right spot, it will actually alert us when it is time to turn and when we say yes, it will turn the boat to the new course. This part of keeping the boat going to the right spot sounds much the same as keeping the boat pointed in one direction, but the difference is that between when you set the autopilot and when you get to the spot you were aiming at nature gets to have a say on where you go, there are waves and current both water and wind that push the boat around. The autopilot by itself does not correct for this, with the chart plotter engaged it does.
Once we were headed south on the track to get us to Isla Isabel (the island where we planned to meet the Nacarotto’s) we settled into a routine, Renee’ did some reading and I watched where we were going. About an hour into this, we talked about when we would arrive at the island. Which is when we put it all together, and decided we needed to change our plan. At the speed we were going (6-7 knots) we were on track to get to the island about midnight. This is why we wanted to leave at 2 in the afternoon. The problem with that is the wind in Mazatlan comes up about then, and the port gets closed. So, we had to leave in the morning to get out of the port. We debated staying at an anchorage near the south side of Mazatlan, but the reviews on this anchorage all seemed to focus on one word, “THIEVES” so, we decided to bypass the island and go straight to Matachén.
The rest of the trip south was pretty quiet, we watched the sun set (the moon was already up, so we did not get a moonrise this time). We watched the moon set the next morning about 12:30 or so. We watched the birds circle the boat, and we watch the waves that had been pretty big with white caps flatten out to almost nothing. We saw a large pod of dolphin, probably a hundred or more, some came to swim with us for about a minute, then they all disappeared. We saw some whales (Orca’s) one stuck it’s tail out of the water about three hundred yards to the east of us and slapped the water, and then repeated this action about a half dozen times. Enough that I was able to get Renee’ to come back on deck and see it while she was making dinner.
Finally, we arrived at Matachén as the sun was just starting to come up. This is a very shallow bay, and from several miles out the water was only about 60 feet deep. When we were still probably 2 or 3 miles out, we were down to about 30 feet. Eventually we saw the other boats that are here, and looked for a place somewhere near but not too near them and found a spot in about 20 feet of water and put our anchor down. We put the screens down and noting the time (7 am), turned everything off, set the anchor alarm and went to bed. The end to a very long day, distance traveled about 140 miles. Other boats seen, none closer than 3 miles.